Trump to Meet Martin Luther King Jr.’s Eldest Son to Observe Holiday

WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald J. Trump will meet on Monday with the eldest son of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to discuss the legacy and observe the holiday of the civil rights icon, Mr. Trump’s spokesman said.

The unexpected move comes as tensions escalate between the incoming president and a number of prominent black elected officials after Mr. Trump feuded with Representative John Lewis, Democrat of Georgia, who had fought for civil rights alongside King.

Sean Spicer, Mr. Trump’s press secretary and communications director, announced the planned meeting in New York between Mr. Trump and Martin Luther King III in a morning posting on Twitter. It came two days after the president-elect had taken to the social media platform to attack Mr. Lewis after the congressman said an interview that he would not attend the inauguration and did not see Mr. Trump as a legitimate president because of questions about whether Russian hacking had affected the American election.

Mr. Trump hit back on Saturday with Twitter postings calling Mr. Lewis, who was brutally beaten in the “Bloody Sunday” march in 1965 in Selma, Ala., “all talk,” and saying that instead of “falsely complaining” about the election results, he should focus on fixing his “falling apart” and “crime infested” Georgia district.

Mr. Lewis actually represents a district that includes the wealthy enclave of Buckhead; the world’s busiest airport, Hartsfield-Jackson; the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; and the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Later, Mr. Trump said that Mr. Lewis should help him focus on “burning and crime infested inner-cities” throughout the United States and adding, “I can use all the help I can get!”

In a series of television interviews on Monday, Mr. Spicer said Mr. Lewis started the fight, and he defended Mr. Trump’s decision to respond, telling CBS that the president-elect is “not going to sit back and just take attacks without responding.”